The mainstream press like the Toronto Star and Globe can't be bothered to report about it, because it might take away from the space they need to bash Rob Ford for wanting to spend a long weekend at the cottage.

The lack of protest by the usual suspect groups like Queers Against Israeli Apartheid that only seem to be focused on what Israel does, creates even more of an appearance that they too are motivated by anti-Semitism and not social justice.

UPDATE: Looks like the Star finally got the message and published this

According to The Toronto Star, lawyers for convicted terrorist Momin Khawaja are going to the Supreme Court to argue "that because the definition required the terrorist conduct to be performed for political, religious or ideological reasons, it infringes the Charter right to express religious beliefs and political opinions."

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Homosexuality remains illegal in Iran, punishable by flogging, imprisonment or death. In 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while on a visit to Columbia University, denied that there are gay people in Iran. And in 2005 and 2006, there were high-profile reports of executions of young men, allegedly for sodomy.

Parsi says that he would like to see Toronto’s Iranian queers come together but that there needs to be more acceptance from his fellow Iranians in Canada.

“Our most important challenge is not by white Canadians, because most of them are welcoming. They know Canada receives many immigrants… and they can contribute to this country,” says Parsi. “Our problem is by Iranian communities. Not all of them, but most Iranian people who live in Canada, they don’t know about queer rights and they don’t support it.”

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

This is NSFW, so the pictures aren't going up on this blog, but Germany's Die Welt has a photo essay of nude female athleticism that is strikingly beautiful, if scarily evocative of some of Leni Riefenstahl's Nazi art propaganda.

Iranian media has identified a Hamas/U.K Muslim Brotherhood leader as the coordinator of the current Gaza flotilla. According to a report by Iranian Press TV:

Press TV talks to Mohammed Sawalha, Gaza aid flotilla coordinator, to ask him about the aims and plans of the flotilla.Press TV: Welcome to the show sir. Where are we now with the flotilla plans?Sawalha: We are now in the last stage of preparations. We have now around 12 ships ready to sail and we already have hundreds of activists in the area there in Greece and other countries and we are just waiting till the end of the month to leave.Press TV: What have you been preparing for this year’s flotilla in light of what happened last year?Sawalha: We know how the Israelis behave and we are putting it in our minds that the Israelis can do anything and all the activists are really ready to face the Israelis policies.We understand that the Palestinians are paying the price everyday inside Palestine because of the crimes of the Israelis to keep the siege, you know, by killing the Palestinians and not allowing even medicine and food to cross to Gaza.Read the rest here.

The Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) has published a profile of Hamas activist and U.K. Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Kazem Sawalha, describing him as follows:

Muhammad Kazem Sawalha is a senior Hamas activist who publicly supports jihad and was formerly involved in both political and operational Hamas activities in Judea and Samaria, including running the terrorist operative infrastructure. He was wanted by the Israeli security services but in October 1990 used forced documents to escape to Jordan, and from there went to Britain. In Britain he has been involved in intensive anti-Israeli activities within the Islamic community, with the Muslim Brotherhood and with British organizations providing support for the de facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip.

The ITIC profiles also details Sawalha’s ties to the U.K. Muslim Brotherhood.

Monday, June 27, 2011

At least today's histrionic rant against Rob Ford by al Starzeera's resident mouthpiece for the condo industry sounds like it was written by Mallick.

Time hasn’t forgotten Toronto, but Toronto would like to forget time.

Under its new mayor, Rob Ford, the city is turning back the clock to the good old days of the chief magistrate’s imagining. Never one to be distracted by reality, Ford believes that we can ignore — no, undo — the changes that have redrawn the face of Toronto during recent years and return to some white-bread suburban utopia that never existed. No one should underestimate the power of illusion, of course, but just months after Ford took office, the credibility gap between what we know and what he says has been stretched to the breaking point.

In Rob Ford’s Toronto there is no need for public heath nurses. There are no poor people, no gays, no immigrants, no cyclists, no need for housing and nothing the market can’t fix.

That this is nonsense goes without saying. While Ford’s hordes cheer him on in the most unseemly manner, cutting off their collective nose to spite their collective face, they have little to offer aside from insults and jeers. Not believing themselves a part of Toronto, they are content to watch as it is dismantled by the mayor.

Though it has quickly become predictable, the glee with which Ford’s hordes greet his every bêtise still disturbs. The sort of casual civic destructiveness Ford has legitimized in Toronto reminds one of what happened recently in Vancouver. Toronto hasn’t experienced riots — at least not since police went on a rampage during the G20 summit last summer — but both events demonstrate the human capacity for and love of destruction for its own sake.

Check out the link above. In Blazing Cat Fur's video he records a classic, Monty Pythonesque line from one of the leaders of the pro-Assad group: "We are people who are into foward thinking, our President Bashar is doing that for us."

In assessing the condition of the 1.6 million people who live in Gaza, there are issues of where to draw the baseline and — often — what motivates the discussion. It has never been among the world’s poorest places. There is near universal literacy and relatively low infant mortality, and health conditions remain better than across much of the developing world.

Turkey has asked Israel to agree to a toned-down version of the UN Secretary-General's report on last year's flotilla to Gaza, according to a senior government official in Jerusalem.

According to the official, the Turks are "very worried" about the harsh criticism of Turkey they expect the report to contain, and want Israel to agree to a softened version as part of a package deal to end the crisis between the two countries over the flotilla, which took place in May 2010.

..A draft of the report, due to be released within two weeks, was given to Israel and Turkey about six weeks ago. The committee determined that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza is in keeping with international law, and therefore its actions to stop the flotilla were also legal.

According to a senior government official in Jerusalem, the report criticizes the Turkish government and highlights the relationship between it and IHH, the group that organized the flotilla.

Hello, This is the only way I could contact you for now,I want you to be very careful about this and keep this secret with you until I make out space for us to see. You have no need of knowing who I am or where I am from.I know this may sound very surprising to you but it’s the situation.I have been paid some ransom in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employer. It’s someone I believe you call a friend, I have followed you closely for a while now and have seen that you are innocent of the accusations he leveled againstyou. Do not contact the police or try to send a copy of this to them,because if you do, I will know,and I might be pushed to do what I have been paid to do.Besides, this is the first time I turn out to be a betrayer in my job. I took pity on you,that is why I have made up my mind to help you if you are willing to help yourself.Now listen I need just $5,000. And you have to send it through western union; I repeat, do not arrange for the cops and if you play hard to get, it will be extended to your family. Do not set any camera to cover us or set up any tape to record our conversation, my employer is in my control now. Payment details will be provided for you to make a part of the payment of $3,000 first,which will serve as guarantee that you are ready to you co-operate,then i will post a copy of the video tape that contains his request for me to terminate you which will be enough evidence for you to take any legal action against him before he employs another person for the job. You will pay the balance of $2,000 once you receive the tape.Warning; do not contact the police, make sure you stay indoors once it is 7.30pm until this whole thing is sorted out,if you neglect any of these warnings, you will have yourself to blame. You do not have much time, so get back to me immediately.Note:I will advise you keep this to yourself alone, not even a friend or a family member should know about it because it could be one of them.RegardDon

You can't make this kind of stuff up..well, at least not unless you have brain damage:

Final trashing of downtown Vancouver is a manifestation of what has become the normal popular response to contemporary capitalism's behaviour. In this instance, the corporate media hype around the playoffs, NHL manipulation of the series, local on-site liquor vendors' fuelling of the crowd, and the assuredly pre-ordained defeat of the Canucks led to the ensuing post-defeat looting of the high-end chain stores and the trashing of cop cars. As we have seen increasingly across the globe, this event was simply a local manifestation of frustration and anger generated by contemporary capitalism as practiced and lived in this outpost of empire.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

"Uncurbed, Muslim intimidation in the public domain of people they see as disagreeing with them is palpable and palpably affecting the British Christian majority among whom they live, indeed, cowing them into silence. One senses real fear (perhaps a corner was turned with the Muslim reactions around the world to the "Mohammed cartoons" and the responses in the West to these reactions.) Which, if true, is a sad indication of what is happening in the historic mother of democracies and may point to what is happening, and will increasingly happen, in Western Europe in general in the coming decades."

Monday, June 20, 2011

The ostensive purpose of the Worldviews Conference held in Toronto this past weekend was to discuss the convergence of media and "higher learning." Attending the conference, one thing that became readily apparent is that the academics who had gathered there from across North America and the world to pronounce on how the media should work have virtually no understanding of how the media does work.

Nothing illustrates that better than the fact that a conference on how to shape media coverage of Academia couldn't even manage to shape media coverage of itself. The only significant media attention the Worldviews Conference received was about Bill Ayers, Barack Obama's Weather Underground terrorist friend, being barred entry to Canada to attend it.

It was almost startling to watch the assembled eggheads who purport to have some knowledge of the subject appear perplexed about why the press isn't more anxious to effectively act as a public relations arm of academia. Particularly, some of the worst examples of academia like conference sponsors OISE and York University, both notorious for being institutes where activist ideology trumps education.

Want media atention? Try this!

The media, while an integral component of a free society, is also a business, and increasingly a highly competitive, entertainment-focused business. As such it has to give people a measure of what they want to see. And it's no secret people want to see scandals, sex, celebrity news and developments that have an immediate and direct effect on their lives.

The media gives university affairs coverage when it satisfies one or more of those categories. As an ironic example of that, Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper, another conference sponsor, devoted most of its sparse coverage of the conference to ruminating on a recent scandal at The University of Alberta where the Medical School Dean was accused of plagiarizing a convocation speech.

The tone of undeserved self-congratulation that pervaded the conference was exemplified in one seminar where a professor from the Ontario College of Art and Design discussed how she and a team had developed, with grant money, an application for people with brain injuries resulting in amnesia and memory loss. These people often cannot remember people they have met, nor can they recall their emotional response to those people, and have to relearn it on each encounter. Her team developed an application that allows amnesia victims to create a diagram with squiggles and colors of the sort the Jackson Pollack would have painted while hung-over. These diagrams are supposed to convey the emotional response they have to different people that they can refer to during encounters where their memory fails them.

At the end of the seminar, I asked the professor if the amnesiacs for whom she created the application also lost the ability to read English. She shook her head and said no. So I asked the first thing that popped in my head when she mentioned her invention. Wouldn't it make more sense to write down a note like "Bob Smith - hate him, tells boring stories, but throws good parties" rather than have to rely on some vague and hard to interpret abstract design to convey less precise information?

She then commenced an articulate, intelligent and lengthy response, from whose first sentence it was obvious I was being fed a line of BS. Not that it matters; the grant cheque cleared and was spent a long time ago.

The conference wrap-up was more evidence that the relationship between the media and universities will be a relationship on terms that neither can dictate nor seem to appreciate. Titled The role of media and higher education in promoting democratic culture, it was evident that academics think the media should be a tool for promoting the Academy's particular notions of democratic culture. Given the heavy Marxist influence in universities, that might not be such a good thing.

I suggested to the panelists that universities take public funds, yet remain almost unique in the way they hold themselves unaccountable for it. One of the critical aspects of a democracy is the right of the public to know how their resources and taxes are being used. No other publicly funded institutions (with the possible exception of the CBC) could take tax money, and when confronted with a scandal, refuse comment and not provide transparency. Yet universities do that regularly, and all the while lecturing everyone else about how democracy should work.

The panelists response fell back on the lazy, staple argument of "academic freedom," without seeming to appreciate that transparency and academic freedom are not necessarily incompatible. But they do have reason not to be entirely forthcoming. Academics understand that if the public had better knowledge of what was being taught in some programs, universities' decision-making processes and how public funds were used, public outrage would lead to irresistible pressure for major reforms in the university system.

The Worldview Conference's goal of finding a way for universities to better exploit the media to spread their message is unlikely to be achieved any time soon. Until academics and university administrations appreciate that hypocrisy, secretiveness and self-indulgence are poor platforms to stand on to pontificate about democratic reform, the relationship between the media and the academy will continue to be as adversarial as it is cooperative.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

A bunch of reports are circulating about a dog that wandered into a Jewish religious court in Jerusalem being sentenced to death by stoning because it was supposedly the reincarnation of a deceased, cursed lawyer.

The BBC publicised the story ending it with their own fatuous comment that "Dogs are often considered impure animals in traditional Judaism." Evidently the genius experts at the Beeb don't understand the difference between Judaism, that doesn't take a detrimental view of canines and Islam, which does.

The story, as it turns out, was completely false. Jewish law explicitly forbids cruelty to animals and the rabbi who was accused by the media issued a statement saying there was no excuse for abusing animals according to Jewish religious law or otherwise. He added that workers from a local animal shelter had come to collect the dog from his courtroom that day.

But we probably won't hear the real story from the BBC.

UPDATE: Oh, look..the Beeb did eventually correct it, but not with nearly as much fanfare as they presented the lie. (Thanks to reader Ramona for the update!)

The poll of the audience at last night's Munk Debate over the proposition, "Will the 21st Century belong to China?" was split right down the middle prior to the debate. The ballots showed that 39% agreed and 40% disagreed with 21% being undecided.

The debate subject was a bit odd in that it required the participants to prognosticate and as Yoggi Berra said, "It's tough to make predictions. especially about the future."

Nonetheless, debaters David Daokui Li and Niall Ferguson for the pro side and Henry Kissinger and Fareed Zakaria for the con, despite presenting opposing positions, were all very convincing about their ability to see into the future as far as China's role in the world is concerned.

Doug Donderi's and my debate for the Head-to-Head contest won us seats on stage, a few feet from Kissinger, who as Munk Debate moderator Rudyard Griffiths informed the audience, was participating that night in his first public debate ever at the age of 88.

The audience was clearly there to see the legendary former Secretary of State, but if the debate had a star, it was Harvard professor and Kissinger biographer Niall Ferguson. Combining a remarkable command of information about the extent of China's global economic reach he also hilariously beat up Kissinger and Zakaria with quotes from their own works where they predicted China's global dominance.

Kissinger, famous for leading the move to establish relation between Communist China and America had a special insight into the evening's subject. His view was that the political upheaval that China has in store from a growing middle class that will demand more political rights and freedoms combined with the shift from a rural to urban population, will keep China too busy internally to capitalize on its current economic trajectory.

The evening had a bit of an intimidating moment in the form of a warning from Professor Li. He cautioned the West that China is growing stronger and stronger and it would not tolerate interference in its interests from the outside. Ferguson revelled in that moment, using it as an example of growing Chinese confidence and power. I just found it kind of scary.

It wasn't until the end of the debate that I was convinced that China may indeed be the world's single dominant player for the bulk of this century until Ferguson made a concise and fascinating point. He discouraged the idea of thinking of democracy in American/Western terms. Democracy has different, yet functional approaches through the world, and he suggested that the Chinese model would look like a giant Singapore.

That swayed me. But I was in the minority among the audience. It was Fareed Zakaria's emotional 'mom and apple pie' closing appeal to the audience not to give up on the free west, free markets and free societies that won the argument for the con side.

The event itself was quite an evening with a number of notable attendees. Former US Defense Secretary William Cohen was in the audience and posed a question during the debate. Brian Mulroney was there as was Canada's current Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird.

Very Attractive
American Academic

Poor Mr. Baird was minding his own business, having a night off, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to accost him to ask what he thought about The Sea Hitler. He's intelligent and good humoured, and I could practically see the thought bubble appear over his head saying. "here we go...on the clock again." But he was adamant in his distaste for the effort by Canadian Islamists and radical leftists to break Israel's arms embargo of Gaza. I referred to them as silly and he corrected me, calling them `dangerous` and added a few other choice words. But I had brought a very attractive American academic I met at the Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education to the debate with me and Baird quite sensibly redirected his attention to her.

With Friday`s debate and the previous one with Tony Blair debating Christopher Hitchens over religion, the Munk Debates series has established itself as one of Toronto`s premier intellectual happenings, and whatever the next one offers should be fascinating.

Leigh Fermor had lived in Greece before the war, had taken a part in the revolution of 1935, and had seen the German invasion sweep all before it. He spoke the language and loved the culture and could be fairly inconspicuously infiltrated onto the island of Crete. In 1944, with the help of some British special forces and a team of Cretan partisans, he managed to kidnap the commander of the German occupation, Gen. Heinrich Kreipe, and carry him over a long stretch of arduous terrain before loading him into a fast motorboat that sped him to Egypt and British captivity. The humiliation of the German authorities could not have been more complete. Perhaps resenting this, Gen. Kreipe was at first obnoxious and self-pitying, until the moment came when he was being taken over the crest of Mount Ida and a "brilliant dawn" suddenly broke. According to Leigh Fermor's memoirs:

We were all three lying smoking in silence, when the general, half to himself, slowly said: Vides et ulta stet nive candidum Soracte. ["See how Mount Soracte stands out white with deep snow."] It was the opening of one of the few Horace odes I knew by heart. I went on reciting where he had broken off. … The general's blue eyes swiveled away from the mountain top to mine and when I'd finished, after a long silence, he said: "Ach so, Herr Major!" It was very strange. "Ja, Herr General." As though for a moment the war had ceased to exist. We had both drunk at the same fountains long before, and things were different between us for the rest of our time together.

A fascinating tribute to Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor by Christopher Hitchens in Slate

Monday, June 13, 2011

On Friday, June 17, The Munk Debates at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto will present Niall Ferguson and David Daokui Li arguing that China will be the 21st Century's dominant force while Henry Kissinger and Fareed Zakaria will take the opposing view.

Now at the Munk Debate website, you can see Douglas Donderi debate Eye on a Crazy Planet's Richard Klagsbrun about that proposition.

See it through this link and remember to vote on who you think won the debate.

Picture the following: A discussion in a post-graduate university class on the topic of Jews turns ugly. The professor is uncritical when one student says he doesn’t want to be around Jews. Another student complains about “rich Jews,” implying their excessive power. In a subsequent class, the same professor, as if to validate those points, says half her department faculty are Jews and with her approbation, students conduct a ‘Jew count’.

While this sounds like an episode in Germany leading up to the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws, it occurred more recently and much closer to home, at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Social Work. Now, more details are emerging under the exceptional circumstance of two U of T professors publicly criticizing a colleague for facilitating classroom anti-Semitism and the university administration’s inadequate response. The controversy began when some visible minority students in a Social Work Master’s program at the University of Toronto expressed discomfort about being around “rich Jews,” in Professor Rupaleem Bhuyan’s class, regarding a proposed outing in 2009 to the Baycrest Centre, an internationally renowned Jewish geriatric and research facility. They were undoubtedly confident of a sympathetic ear from her. The previous year, Bhuyan denounced Israel as a satellite of the United States, unworthy of distinction as a separate country.

The few Jewish students in Bhuyan’s Master's Program class were intimidated into silence for much of the discussion by a classroom culture slanted against them. Finally, one young woman spoke up, protesting her grandparents had come to Canada with virtually nothing and she was proud her family could now afford the fees for them to reside at Baycrest.

That must have rung an alarm bell for Professor Bhuyan, because startlingly, she then admonished her students not to divulge what transpired in class to outsiders.

But her classroom was not Las Vegas and what happened there did not stay there. Some outraged Jewish students approached Professor Paula David, who in turn consulted senior professors Ernie Lightman and Adrienne Chambon.

“Students are in a vulnerable position and dread officially attaching their name to complaints against a professor in a program like Social Work” said Lightman. “Aside from determining grades, they fear one bad word from a professor to a social agency can eliminate their employment prospects.”

In the face of such circumstances, Lightman assumed the voice of the Jewish students who endured the vitriol in Bhuyan’s class. He, with Chambon spoke to Faye Mishna, the Dean of Social Work about the incidents. A letter Lightman wrote to U of T President David Naylor about the matter also became public.

By way of response, Mishna, without specific reference to the incident or Bhuyan, sent out a pair of letters to the Social Work department generically condemning anti-Semitism.

Lightman believes the university’s response was absurd. “The department’s approach seemed to imply a widespread problem with anti-Semitism– which there wasn’t – and that everyone is potentially a racist when one professor promoted anti-Semitism and was never held publicly accountable.”

The Canadian Jewish Congress declined to participate in resulting seminars on anti-Semitism held for the Social Work Department. According to the CJC’s Bernie Farber, “We were not satisfied in the end with the entire process.”

Chambon, a Jewish professor who is Director of PhD programs in the Social Work department, was particularly pained by these events. Originally from France, she relates that “I am from Europe and of a generation with bad memories of the sinister results of Jew counts.” After hearing about the incident, Chambon arranged to meet with Bhuyan.

“I was flabbergasted” Chambon disclosed. “She told me ‘racialized’ students come from underprivileged backgrounds and were justified in not wanting to be around old Jews because they are rich and would make them uneasy. I couldn’t believe my ears. I took some paper and wrote down what she said in front of her. Bhuyan then said the donor plaques at the university were all from rich Jews, which she felt proved her point. Aside from being factually wrong, it reflects an attitude that polarizes groups and reinforces stereotypes that do not belong in the teaching of Social Work.”

Professor Bhuyan did not reply to a request to comment for this article and the University refused to add to Social Work Department Dean Mishna’s response that, “the Faculty took all steps to address the matter appropriately at the time of the incident and thereafter.”

Nothing could be more false in the opinion of Lightman, Chambon and others.While patiently waiting for the wheels of justice to grind slowly, they instead saw them go off the rails.

Bhuyan, an untenured Assistant Professor, who never offered a public apology for her behaviour, was rewarded by the University with a contract renewal .

That development has frustrated a number of professors in a dysfunctional Social Work Department that remains divided in opposing camps. Lightman insists this matter must be exposed and wrote a recent article about it for The Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.

Lightman asserts, “It’s ironic that a department purporting to teach anti-racism is incapable of dealing with racism in its own house. We have a responsibility to students to ensure faculty do not abuse the power inherent in their positions, and to the community-at-large to ensure all the Social Workers it graduates reflect and promote the values of the field. That hasn’t happened here."

UPDATE: Ontario's Minister for Colleges and Universities is John Miloy. The Progressive Conservative Critic for that portfolio is Jim Wilson. Why not let them know what you think?

Constituents in his New York 9th Congresional District rally against sexting scandal Congressman Anthony Weiner following release of more lurid photos of the House member grabbing his member in the House gym.

There have been previous reports from other flashpoint towns of conscripts being shot for refusing to open fire on civilians, always officially denied. But the unprecedented regime casualty list in Jisr al-Shughour suggests the rot is spreading inside the many-headed security apparatus. Assad now faces two revolts. One on the streets, another within his own power structures. Like autocrats elsewhere, he will discover you cannot shoot down an idea.By trying to externalise the conflict away from Syria's cities into the wider region, effectively projecting it on to Israel and potentially Lebanon and Iraq too, the regime poses a greater threat to western and Israeli interests than at any time since the 1973 Ramadan (Yom Kippur) war.France and others are finally waking up to this evolution, with Paris demanding UN security council action. There is talk of referrals to the international criminal court. The US is considering even tougher sanctions. Assad's legitimacy "if not gone, [has] nearly run out", says Hillary Clinton. Nobody is talking about military measures, not yet at least. But momentum is building. Meanwhile William "behind-the-curve" Hague remains publicly fixated on his misjudged pursuit of Libya's Gaddafi and a Yemeni boatlift – all but oblivious to the vastly more dangerous implications of a Syrian implosion.Recent incursions into the Israeli-occupied sectors of the Golan Heights, orchestrated by Damascus, dramatically illustrate how the Syrian conflagration could be purposefully spread. And what price a completed US withdrawal from Iraq this year if the country is destabilised by a spillover flood of Syrian combatants and refugees?

Perhaps no one has distinguished himself as a feudist in the past few decades more than Christopher Hitchens, who in an e-mail gave some helpful hints on how to start a feud — and, more important, how to keep it going.

A proper feud, Mr. Hitchens wrote, requires one of at least two things: a clash of strong and recognizable personalities, and a true clash of important principle. “A really first-rate bust-up must transcend the limits of ‘an entertaining side show’ and involve playing for high moral and intellectual stakes,” he said.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Sandra Ruch is a local leader of the effort to launch the Sea Hitler, the Canadian boat attempting to break Israel's blockade against Iranian arms smuggling to its proxy group Hamas in Gaza.

She claims to be concerned about "human rights," but Ms Ruch's endeavours in that area are evidently limited to attempting to deny Israel, a pluralistic democracy, the same right to self-defense as any other country in the world.

Israel, which just hosted a huge Gay Pride parade in Tel Aviv, has laws protecting Gay rights, women's rights and affords all religions the right to unfettered practice. This stands in stark contrast to Iran, which executes people merely for being Gay, uses rape an a sanctioned form of punishment for women in prison, and whose officials carried out the prison torture, rape and murder of Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi. Iran`s Mullah-ocracy persecutes practioners of religions other than Shia Islam, including the peaceful Baha'i minority.

The Baha`ì religion, which originated in Iran, now has its world headquarters in Haifa, Israel; in the only middle eastern country that actually does allow religious freedom.

No honest, sane person could actually claim to support human rights while showing support for the Iranian Khomeinist regime. It only compounds such foolishness to do so while criticizing Israel, whose human rights record surpasses Iran's beyond measure.

So it is interesting to note whose large portrait one of Ms Ruch's group is holding up for her backdrop as part of the Sea Hitler effort.

The only interests that are being served by the Sea Hitler are of Hamas and its master, Iran. By proudly associating with the Khomeinist regime at Sea Hitler rallies, some of Iran's useful idiots display contempt for real human rights along with an ignorance of the hypocritical ramifications of their tacit support for terrorism.

Warren Allmand was a Cabinet Minister in Pierre Trudeau's government from 1972 to 1979. He was notable for tabling legislation as Solicitor General that abolished Canada's death penalty and for his unsuccessful Private Member's Bill to have the Queen removed from Canada's Citizenship Oath.

No longer in Cabinet following Trudeau's 1980 defeat of Joe Clark, Allmand was dumped from his position as Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice by Jean Chretien in 1995, and then Allmand chose not to attempt re-election as an MP. He later became a Montreal City Councillor for four years.

The almost 79 year-old Allmand has recently demonstrated a serious lack of judgement and coherence by becoming a Board Member of fanatical anti-Israel and borderline anti-Semitic group that deceptively calls itself Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.

In his new role, the geriatric ex-politician has made bizarre comparisons attempting to equate Israel with Hamas. He says it is unfair that Israel should blockade arms from reaching an Iranian-proxy terrorist group, but complains there is no blockade preventing arms reaching Israel to defend itself from terror. He also equates Israel's nuclear abilities to its neighbours. Allmand must be ignorant of the fact that Iran, which seeks nuclear weapons, has threatened to wipe the Jewish state off the map, while Israel, despite having the capability, has never threatened the destruction of any of its neighbours, even Gaza, which launches attacks against civillians.

Allmand uses declarations of the United Nations Human Rights Council as support for his position. That body certainly caries as much moral weight as anything coming from Allmand. It includes such bastions of human rights as China, Cuba, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh,Pakistan and until March of this year also included Colonel Ghaddafi's Libya. Allmand certainly picks the right people with whom to associate.

Allmand's pronouncements reflect the moral turpitude of The Sea Hitler's support and raises the question of why this effort to abet the terror group Hamas, which is a violation of Canadian law, is not being faced with criminal prosecution.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

"Community Clinic" Jack proves again that NDP stands for No Damn Principles. As usual, he plays stupid (although I`m prepared to accept the possibility he isn`t playing), saying his caucus members can make up their own minds about Sea Hitler support. So Layton has a party where individual members can make up their own policies. The NDP is a pathetic joke and Layton a poor excuse for a political leader.

Canada has designated Hamas, the "Islamic Resistance Movement" in Gaza, as a terrorist organization and it is a criminal offense in Canada to provide aid to terrorists.

Why then are Canadians allowed to launch an effort to provide Hamas terrorists with material aid without facing prosecution in the Canadian courts?

This is a question effectively being asked by a law suit just launched against "Turtle Island Humanitarian Aid" and the Montreal-based activist organization Alternatives International which has become notorious as a recipient of taxpayer money while working for an agenda that conflicts with Canada's foreign policy goals.

Cherna Rosenberg is a Canadian citizen who divides her time between Israel and Canada. She is the plaintiff in a million dollar law suit against the Canadian organizers of a boat meant to challenge Israel's arms embargo of Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Her suit alleges that she suffered trauma from Hamas' ongoing rocket bombardment of the Israeli town of Sderot, where she maintains a residence and that the purpose of the Canadian Gaza boat which its organizers have called ' Tahrir' and its opponents have dubbed "The Sea Hitler" is "to aid and abet the terrorist organization that rules Gaza."

Ms Rosenberg is represented by Neal Sher, who was the head of the US Justice Department's Nazi prosecution office, and Toronto lawyer Ed Morgan. In addition to the claim of damages, they are seeking an immediate injunction against the defendants' raising funds, acquiring supplies and renting or purchasing a vessel for the purpose of delivering foods or funds to the Gaza strip.

"The suit is based on a principle established by the US Supreme Court" said Ed Morgan. "Even if their stated goal of delivering humanitarian aid is true, it is likely to be controlled by a terror organization and in any case, it then frees up other funds and resources for them to be able to use for terrorist attacks."

Israel's sea blockade of Gaza is designed to prevent arms shipments to Gaza, which is ruled by an organization whose charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel, as well as the killing of Jews and allegations of international conspiracies by Zionists and Freemasons and the Rotary Club. The supporters of the effort to break the blockade, such as participant David Heap, a radical activist and University of Western Ontario French instructor, have acknowledged that their ostensible purpose of delivering aid is secondary to the political statement they hope to achieve.

According to Mr. Morgan, Alternatives International has not yet responded to the statement of claim. Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney's office has received a number of calls demanding the immediate defunding of that organization as well as calls for it to reimburse the Treasury for the funds it received.

The Conservative government and the Liberal Party have been unequivocal in its condemnation of the radical activists who are launching the effort to disrupt Israel's ability to prevent Iranian arms shipments. The opposition NDP's position remains conflicted and unclear. NDP Leader Jack Layton and Foreign Affiars Critic Thomas Mulcair have stated they oppose the new Gaza flotilla attempt, but NDP MPs Alex Atamanenko and Alexandre Boulerice have endorsed it without their party superiors taking any disciplinary action or requiring their retraction. NDP Health Critic Libby Davies stirred up her own trouble for the NDP with statements on Israel almost exactly a year ago by effectively challenging Israel's right to exist and expressing her support for the boycott, sanctions and divestment movement against the middle east's only democracy. Davies' spouse, Kim Elliott is the publisher of the anti-Israel website rabble.ca, which routinely refers to Israel as an "apartheid" state and echoes Davies' boycott advocacy.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Blazing Cat Fur has the scoop on a just-launched lawsuit by a Canadian/Israeli woman against the terror-supporters of the Sea Hitler for $1 million in damages.

Related: Even the Turkish Foreign Minister is now telling the Hamas terror enablers to hold off on their flotilla. This is after the UN Secretary General and Canada's Foreign Minister have issued condemnations of the boats who want to help Hamas have an easier time smuggling in Iranian arms.

Monday, June 6, 2011

When the NDP's most radical MP, Libby Davies challenged Israel's right to exist and endorsed a boycott of the middle east's sole democracy a year ago, she was immediately chastised by her party leader Jack Layton. NDP Foreign Affairs Critic and Deputy Leader Thomas Mulcair delivered the message from the top at the time saying, “No member of our caucus, whatever other title they have, is allowed to invent their own policy. We take decisions together, parties formulate policies together, and to say that you’re personally in favour of boycott, divestment and sanctions for the only democracy in the Middle East is, as far as I’m concerned, grossly unacceptable.”

Now the Official Opposition, it appears that Layton and Mulcair are continuing to have trouble keeping an incoherent caucus in line. Alex Atamanenko, the NDP's Parliamentary representative for BC Southern Interior has just become an official endorser of the Sea Hitler, the boat a number of Canadian Marxist and Islamist groups want to use to break Israel's arms blockade of Gaza.

In reference to the Sea Hitler, Canada's Forein Affairs Minister, John Baird, said "Unauthorized efforts to deliver aid are provocative and, ultimately, unhelpful to the people of Gaza. Canada recognizes Israel’s legitimate security concerns and its right to protect itself and its residents from attacks by Hamas and other terrorist groups, including by preventing the smuggling of weapons."

Israel is permitting humanitarian aid to Gaza through land crossings, and Egypt recently opened its Rafah crossing with Gaza, so the only apparent reason for the new flotilla is for propaganda purposes to vilify Israel and to support the terrorist government of Hamas' ongoing effort to smuggle in Iranian weapons.

Hamas has been responsible for thousands of missile attacks on the Jewish state since it withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005. Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. so they will undoubtedly welcome an endorsement from a Canadian parliamentarian, even from a party as incompetent and irresponsible as the one led by "Community Clinic" Jack Layton.

The only outstanding question is whether Thomas Mulcair has lost control or if he can rein in wayward, radical MPs in his party who are trying to undermine his brief.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

The Arab countries undergoing revolutionary maelstroms are all dictatorships without any real democratic traditions. The history of latter-day revolutions suggests that bodes badly for what may come in those lands. If the examples of the French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Cambodian and Iranian Revolutions are anything to go by, the consistent tradition would be for another, more brutal form of government to emerge.

In an odd way, revolutions become strange reflections of the tyrannies they profess to replace. Lenin and Stalin became sadistic Czars, Mao became a cruel Emperor, Khomeini was a bloodthirsty, ecclesiastic Shah, and Castro a despotic Generalissimo who just happened to favour Communism over Capitalism.

There is one exception, where a revolution resulted in profound change while civil order
was maintained, and a new government was formed that enshrined rights and liberties unknown in the past. That is in the example of the United States of America.

The differences in the outcome of the American Revolution could be attributed to a variety of factors, but the most basic and profound of these is the fact that the US emerged from the British democratic tradition. The American Revolution was actually the culmination of a British tradition of rebellion aimed at transferring authority from the monarch to the people, dating from the Magna Carta in 1215, through to the English Civil War that pitted Parliament against King Charles I, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that saw James II removed from the throne.

The American Continental Congress was a genuine, functioning, democratic body, so the transition to an independent, liberal democratic system was a natural outgrowth of existing institutions. In fact, it was only through the extraordinary humility and nobility of George Washington that America didn't have its own monarchy for a time. Washington declined the offer to become America's king and in a most rare example among those in position of great power, voluntarily removed himself from it.

Unfortunately, there is no Arab country that bears much resemblance to the values of Colonial America, other than that many of them still maintain the institution of slavery.

And to make matters worse, Arab countries have been mired in state-fed ignorance and hate. Their leaders have, for generations, promoted the idea of Arabs as victims oppressed by the West while fostering sectarianism and racism in government-controlled media that would be shocking to the outside world. As an example of what can happen to a society built on those foundations, one need look no further than the psychotic administration of Ahmadinejad's Iran.

However things may not be as bleak as they seem.

The revolutions that went bad were usually centred around a charismatic leader who would become a new tyrant in the resulting government. No such leader seems to be a factor in any of the Arab revolts.

An even more important consideration is that the revolutions of the past existed largely in a vacuum. While people may have been generally aware of what happened elsewhere, they were primarily focused on themselves. Now we live in an age of instant, global communication. It is just that pervasive exchange of information that is spreading the seeds of revolt through the Arab middle east. On their computer screens, Arabs can see how Canadians, British and Australians live and enjoy democratic freedoms. With that genie out of the bottle, it is unlikely they will want to emulate the repression that the Ayatollahs are imposing on the Iranian people.

Only time will reveal what becomes of the change of the Arab Upheaval. While there is a great deal to be cautious about, there is also much cause for hope.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

The United States yesterday announced it would not attend the ironically-named United Nations World Conference Against Racism. The previous two conferences, nicknamed `Durban,`after the site of the original one ten years ago, have been marred by displays of overt anti-Semitism and rabid anti-American rhetoric.

Canada was the first country to announce it would not attend, followed by Israel. Eighteen US Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, had urged the Obama administration to follow Canada`s lead and boycott the 2011 version of the conference. In a letter to New York Senator Kirsten Gilibrand, the US State Department, citing `ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism`in the Durban process, announced it would not participate in the event to be held in New York on September 21, 2011.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Four heavyweight political commentators were brought together yesterday for a panel in Toronto by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, Barack Obama's former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, CNN Political Analyst and former White House staffer David Gergen and Watergate reporter and best selling author Bob Woodward convened to discuss issues related to the Middle East. The discussion's particular focus was The United States' and Israel's relationship with each other and with the rapidly changing political climate in the Arab world.

Alan Dershowitz, Robert Gibbs and Bob Woodward

The event was the centrepiece of The Spirit of Hope gala fundraiser for the Weisenthal's Center's work to foster understanding among peoples and combat anti-Semitism. It attracted a full house of donors to the largest synagogue in Canada, the cavernous Beth Tzedek.

At 4 pm yesterday, a press conference was held at the Beth Tzedek with all four panelists that was surprisingly sparsely attended by the media. I planted myself in the otherwise vacant front row facing the quartet of American Establishment beacons with Che Guevara's iconic face peering at them from the t-shirt I wore under an orange plaid shirt. Unfortunately, the top layer wasn't opened to reveal my t-shirt's ironic message.

The panelists all made opening statements, each in turn praising the work of the Wiesenthal Centre and its promotion of tolerance. When the floor was opened to questions, the other gathered media seemed unprepared, so on the theme of 'tolerance' I gave a brief preamble about how Iran's 1979 revolution proved that what what can begin as a democratic movement can quickly become undemocratic and become the embodiment of what we would consider the opposite of tolerance. With the uncertainty of what may come from the wave of revolts in the Arab world, and the potential for subversion by nefarious groups like al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood, I asked what they thought America could do to preserve its interests in the region.

That seemed to be the issue they all wanted to discuss, because it aroused a lively and lengthy exchange. (CP24 covered it live - you can see this at 7:03 of the video below) If there was a consensus, it was that no one can really be sure of what is going to happen and what certain measures could be taken. Gibbs suggested the sensible proposal of offering economic assistance to the democracies that might emerge from the Arab Upheaval. That term was thought to be a more accurate description of what is currently going on in the middle east, since it is yet to be determined whether the revolutions there lead to a spring or a winter.

David Gergen and Alan Dershowitz

While all the panelists naturally support democracy, Gergen offered the caveat that America should have shown more support to its loyal friends, like Hosni Mubarak, whom he felt the Obama Administration abandoned too readily. For America to maintain regional credibility, it can't be seen to desert its friends. Bob Woodward took issue with that, saying that it was critical that America support democracy not just for strategic reasons but as an expression of its own values.

An elegant-looking Heather Riseman, the CEO of Chapters-Indigo and the moderator of the panel that was to take place that night entered the room and seated herself beside me as Dershowitz provided two examples of legitimate democratic elections that can have disastrous results leading to totalitarian regimes. Germany in 1933 and The Palestinian Authority in 2006. He also provided the interesting anecdote of how supposedly knowledgeable Westerners are incapable of predicting the outcomes of some elections. Dershowitz related how he was with Jimmy Carter in Israel at the time of the election that brought Hamas to power. Carter assured him there was nothing to worry about and Fatah would win overwhelmingly.

Dershowitz concluded by explaining revolutions from one particular Arab perspective. According to the Hamas Charter, the French and Russian Revolutions, [along with Communism and Capitalism,] are all the fault of the Jews.